South Dakota Hikes: Badlands Saddle Pass Loop

I feel incredibly lucky to live an hour from Badlands National Park, which gives us the opportunity to quickly take advantage of breaks in the weather to explore this beautiful area. Such was the case last week when our January temperatures rose into the upper 50 F / 10 C for a few days. Although …

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Touring Jewel Cave National Monument

As we continue to explore things to do around our new home in the Black Hills of South Dakota, it's clear we have a lot to learn about caving! We took a guided tour within Wind Cave National Park a couple years ago that introduced us to the expansive cave networks under the hills and …

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South Dakota Hikes: Buzzard’s Roost

Despite a late start on what ended up being a rainy morning, we managed to get out of the house and over to the Black Hills to check out a hiking area we've been eyeing since we moved to the area called Buzzard's Roost. The multiple trails in this area can be connected into various …

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Wyoming Hikes: Red Beds Trail

It's been a few years since Brian and I visited Devils Tower National Monument. On previous trips we primarily spent our time at the visitor center so this visit we wanted to focus our time on hiking. While many people opt for the short and relatively accessible Tower Trail that winds around the base of …

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South Dakota Hikes: Silver Creek-Flume Loop

The temperature finally dipped below 85 degrees for a day so we headed for the (Black) hills to do some hiking on the Silver Creek Trail and part of the Flume Trail. It was an interesting stretch of relatively flat trail with some creek crossings and lovely wildflowers in bloom. There were lots of people …

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Manitoba: Riding Mountain National Park

We decided to take a short road trip to southern Manitoba - our first time in this Canadian province! - for my birthday this year. While our move to South Dakota a couple weeks prior didn't leave me with tons of planning time, I did map out a four-day itinerary that included spending a couple …

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Hiking in Great Basin National Park

We concluded the national park portion of our recent road trip through Utah and Nevada by visiting Great Basin National Park. I wasn't familiar with Nevada's Great Basin, which is an area that stretches from California's Sierra Nevada to Utah's Wasatch Mountains. This expansive landscape has very few trees or rivers, lots of wide open …

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